You might not know the name Sophie Cunningham, but if you have spent any time on social media lately, you most definitely have seen her.
The WNBA player has gone viral for her on-court finger points that launch a thousand memes and for her ardent defense of Indiana Fever teammate Caitlin Clark. And now she is once again making headlines for giving a refreshing and, frankly, courageous answer about the need to protect women’s sports.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Emily Jashinsky, host of MK Media’s After Party, to discuss Cunningham’s common sense take on the issue and why that is so hard to come by in sports today.
Cunningham’s Common Sense
Cunningham was the subject of a lengthy ESPN profile that dropped earlier this week detailing her college career at the University of Missouri followed by her second-round selection in the 2019 WNBA Draft and her steady rise to fame for what she has done on and off the court.
ESPN mentioned she is known as a “MAGA Barbie” on “some corners of the internet,” a nickname that seemingly arose from Cunningham continually defending Clark amid an endless stream of race-related controversies.
She reacted to the moniker in an interview with The New York Times last year, saying “I’m clearly white and from Missouri, and so I think there was a lot of assumption there.” And the shooting guard gave ESPN a similar answer, calling the nickname “projection” because of what she looks like and where she’s from.
Cunningham was similarly undeterred when speaking to ESPN about the issue of men competing in women’s sport. Here is how the article portrayed her point of view:
She’ll weigh in on how to “protect women’s sports,” she says, because she’s in that world and feels qualified to speak to that world. “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that,'” she says. “I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
But she also insists that none of this is some Rosetta Stone to unlocking the true nature of her political worldview.
“I’m very much in the middle. I agree with things on both sides, disagree with things on both sides. And that’s all I’ve ever said about my political beliefs. But people love to assume.”
That portion of the interview quickly made the rounds on social media, and she was asked about it while speaking to reporters ahead of the Fever’s win against the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday. When she was asked to “expand your viewpoint” on the topic of protecting women’s sports, Cunningham doubled down.
“I think I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense and I think I’ll always believe in that,” she said. “I think it’s really important to protect children, and that’s little girls who are also involved in that category. So, I stand on what I said, and I always believe that.”
She was then asked if she plans to take on an “advocacy” role, to which she made clear that the issue is not political but practical.
“You know, I don’t know… I’m not a very political person, but I do have beliefs, I have morals, and I’ll always stand on those and be true to who I am,” Cunningham explained. “And I think people are going to take it how they want to take it, but I’ve never even really said anything about that.”
“When it comes just to protecting young girls in sport and women in sport, I feel very strongly about that,” she continued. “I think that’s why you have Title IX. That’s why you have some of the greats in women’s sports. If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport. And so, I think in the future it’s just really important to protect.”
‘Pretty Damn Fearless’
While Cunningham is obviously not the first female athlete to speak out about the issue, Megyn said her willingness to do still is still a “huge moment” because there is so much at stake. “She’s in the game right now. She’s not retired. She doesn’t have all the money and accolades and sort of lifetime revered status in her sport that Martina Navratilova has in tennis, and so it’s riskier for her,” she noted.
“And she’s the only one doing it. I mean, truly… I can’t think of another person who’s doing it. It’s certainly not the WNBA. But really in women’s professional sports right now, who is speaking out on behalf of the little girls who are getting hurt by boys playing in their sports,” Megyn asked. “Obviously, Riley Gaines got very active in this after she left college, where she was a college swimmer. But it’s very rare to see somebody like Sophie Cunningham, in the game, making money as a headliner right now come out and say this is wrong, and then standing by it when asked after.”
Part of what makes Cunningham’s position so important, in Jashinsky’s view, is the fact that she explicitly tried to separate it from politics. “With her saying she’s not political and it’s just something that she believes is a value… it inverts what the cultural left likes to say about this issue,” she said.
“They say standing up for people who identify as trans is the the new civil rights issue of our time… Those words were totally diluted by the cultural left,” Jashinsky said. “It’s actually the people like Sophie Cunningham who they try to smear as MAGA bigots, who are the ones standing up for the explicit civil rights that second-wave feminists fought for, civil rights protections, including Title IX, including same sex spaces.”
Despite the issue of protecting women’s sports being an 80-20 issue, very few athletes have chosen to take a stand, which is why Megyn finds Cunningham’s take so refreshing. “This gal is right at the apex of her sport right now, she does have a lot to lose, and she is pretty damn fearless,” she concluded.
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Jashinsky by tuning in to episode 1,366 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.